


im allergic to the waiting

by downsidealaska



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, and ryan is very very open when he's drunk, jen is a good wingman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downsidealaska/pseuds/downsidealaska
Summary: Understanding his own feelings was not something that Ryan Bergara was good at. Editing? Yes. Researching? Hell yeah. But editing and researching his own thoughts? Nope, entirely useless. He would rather just let all his emotions build up in his chest until they killed him than even for one second think about what he was feeling.





	im allergic to the waiting

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song single by the neighbourhood, which is v good and fits the theme of this pretty well, imo

_“I think I could love you until even the sun grows tired of coming back every spring to forgive us for another season of hiding.” –Hanif Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain’t Worth Much)_

     Understanding his own feelings was not something that Ryan Bergara was good at. Editing? Yes. Researching? Hell yeah. But editing and researching his own thoughts? Nope, entirely useless. He would rather just let all his emotions build up in his chest until they killed him than even for one second think about what he was feeling. 

     Which is why, when he looked at Shane and felt a pang of honest to god longing, he felt the need to immediately leave the room to figure out what the actual fuck was happening. 

     Of course, he’d been aware of these inconvenient feelings for a while now. Ever since they’d started doing Unsolved together, in fact. Doing a show with his best friend was the best thing happening in his life, there was no way he was going to fuck that up because of a stupid crush. Even if Shane’s smile was better than a ray of sunlight, and even if his laugh was like condensed joy being injected straight into Ryan’s heart. They were just feelings, he could make them go away. 

     Or so he’d thought, because recently they’d started to poke through his carefully constructed façade, like today, when he’d been caught redhanded staring at the way Shane’s hands moved across his keyboard and he was forced to confront the idea that this wasn't just something he could push away. 

     Ryan sighed, taking a deep breath before going back into the office and sitting down at his desk. He moved to put his headphones back on, but Shane turned to talk to him before he got the chance. 

     “You alright, buddy?” he asked, in that almost motherly tone that meant he knew something was up. 

     “Yeah, it’s no big deal, just a little sick from that diner food this morning,” Ryan explained, covering for himself by using the good ol’ slight food poisoning defense. Shane just nodded sagely as if he knew all along that that was the problem. 

     “Yeah, those greasy spoons’ll get ya every time. At least it’s not another hot dog incident.” 

     “You can’t keep running back to the hot dog excuse,” Ryan answered with a laugh, “Eastern State was fucking scary, dude, you were just scared, you can’t blame being scared on food poisoning. King Hotdog can’t blame his loyal subjects.” 

     At that, Shane, in the midst of taking a sip of coffee, sputters and puts it down, struggling not to spittake onto his monitor.

     “Excuse me, “ _King Hotdog_ ”?” He says, obviously trying not to burst out laughing. Ryan can’t help but notice the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, the way his smile lifts from one side. It’s adorable. 

     “Yeah, you’re King Hotdog now. King Hotdog of the Hot Daga kingdom. Long may he reign.” 

     “Oh, so you’re a fan of the Hot Daga now?” Shane asks, a wicked glint in his eye, and Ryan just sighs and puts his headphones back on, focusing on the script he was editing. 

     The rest of the day rolled by smoothly, with no more conversations or inconvenient brushes with feelings. By 5 o’clock, both ghoul boys were packing up to go home. And then somehow, by some stroke of luck (read: the persuasive powers of Jen and Sara), they had ended up rip-rollicking drunk at 9:30 on a Wednesday in the middle of McCafferty’s pub. 

     “Jen, I hate you. Me right now hates you and tomorrow me hates you,” Ryan says, leaning against the back of their booth, his eyes closed. Jen, across the table, just laughs manically. Ryan only opens his eyes because someone slides into his side of the booth. It’s Shane, of course, with a flushed, drunken tint across his pale face that looked so cute to Drunk Ryan that he almost said something about it out loud. Almost. Shane puts a big glass of water down on the table and slides it in front of him. 

     “Drink up, little man, or you’re gonna regret it tomorrow.” 

     “What’s that supposed to mean, you gonna beat me up or something if I don’t?” 

     “No, it’s-“ 

     “Cause if you’re gonna bruise me up, there’s more fun ways than that,” Ryan says with a wink, cutting Shane off. His eyes go wide, and his face blushes even more than it had been as he chuckles and looks off to the side. 

     “ _Ryan_ ,” Jen says, calling him out in the warning tone she only uses when she knows he’s about to do something stupid. And since she’s the only person on earth that knows about his feelings for Shane, she might actually have a point here. Sober Ryan would definitely care about that. Drunk Ryan could not give a single, solitary fuck about Sober Ryan right now. 

     “What? It’s illegal now for a bro to tell another one of his bros that he wants to climb him like a tree? I thought this was America, where is my freedom?” Ryan looks over at Shane, whose face is going through a myriad of emotions, before settling on one that Ryan is all too familiar with: Absolute Bastard. 

     “Did you just say that you want to, and I quote, “climb me like a tree”? Ryan Bergara, you are absolutely _shameless_.” 

     “Am I not allowed to be thirsty?” Ryan exclaims, throwing his hands up in frustration as Jen falls down laughing onto the bench of the other side of the booth. “I mean, you walk around all day looking like that, being funny and nice and extra fucking hot, and I’m not supposed to put a ring on it like Beyoncé told me to??” 

     That’s the last thing Ryan remembers saying, and as he’s sitting at this desk at 9am the next morning, deliriously hungover and full of regret, it’s the only thing he can think about. Because like, fuck, he just admitted that a) he was physically attracted to Shane, b) he was emotionally attracted to Shane, and c) that he made terrible Beyoncé jokes when he was plastered. He honestly isn’t sure which one is worse. 

     Just then, Shane sits down at his desk, pulling Ryan out of his reverie. He fixes him with a soft smile, and then puts his headphones on. Does he not remember any of last night? Or is he just pretending not to to save face because he doesn’t feel the same way. That’s definitely something Shane would do. Or is it? Ryan is anything but certain, and the thought that Shane knows is eating a hole in the pit of his stomach from the stress of it all. He gets up from his desk, leaving the office to sit down on the steps outside, to maybe get enough fresh air to clear his head. 

     “Ryan?” Shane’s voice says from beside him as Ryan rests his head in his hands. He pauses for a moment and then says “Can I sit here?” 

     “Sure man, whatever you want,” Ryan replies, looking up. He can only imagine that this is the setup for a soft let-down. A “we can still be friends”, or maybe even a “let’s just be coworkers”. He’s ruined everything and he knows it, he fucking knows it. 

     “How much of last night do you remember?” Shane asks, and Ryan sighs. 

     “I remember up to being in the booth with Jen, and that’s it.”

     “Okay, so you don’t remember robbing the bank or stealing that car,” Shane says with complete seriousness, putting up his hands as Ryan looks at him absolutely stunned. “Sorry, sorry, bad joke. But for real, that means you don’t remember later, when it was just us alone in the booth?”

    He says it like a question, but really it’s a statement, and one that’s punctuated with an odd amount of disappointment, at that. Something is for sure wrong here. 

     “No, I have no clue, big guy,” Ryan answers truthfully, and Shane sighs, running a hand though his own hair, his head down as he rests his elbows on his knees.   
"Alright, I guess I’ll say all of it again, then. This is a lot harder when I’m not drunk, but…anyway,” he looks up for the first time, meeting Ryan’s gaze with a sad smile. “If you need time to figure this out I completely understand, and…and even if it takes a million years, I’ll still be here. I’ll always be here for you, Ryan, no matter what.”

     “Shane, what-“

     “Nope, you gotta let me finish,” he sighs, and starts again. “It’s just- I know how I feel about you, dude. I’ve known for a long time now, and I just wanted you to know that I  hope you feel the same about me, that’s all. And if it takes you time to figure that out, that’s cool with me. And if you eventually decide that it’s- that _I’m_ not what you want, then that’s also cool. I mean, you know me, I’m eastern European, the only ones better than us at hiding our feelings until we die is maybe the Irish.”

     “Shane, what are you trying to say?” Ryan asks, his brain racing wildly to parse what his best friend, the guy he’s deeply in love with, is trying to tell him. 

     “I love you, Ryan. Have for a while now. After last night, I just, I dunno, I hoped you felt the same.” 

     “You fucking idiot,” Ryan says, and Shane looks back up at him, a hurt look on his face that gets wiped off the face of the planet when Ryan leans forward and kisses him, pulling him closer with the lapels of that godawful Hawaiian shirt he was wearing. 

     “I love you too, you big goof,” Ryan laughs as he pulls away, looking back at Shane to see that same bastard look in his eye. 

     “You do know that this now makes you Prince Consort of the Hot Daga kingdom, right?” 

**Author's Note:**

> despite being a hardcore shaniac, I still love my precious ghoulboi ryan, lmao. this is the first rpf thing ive written in forever, lolz (i used to be pretty popular in the RT/AH circles, if yall were ever there. i wrote Culture Shock and a bunch of other stuff, if you recognize that) so it might be absolutely trash, idk. thanks for reading tho, yall are all real ones for that


End file.
